WHEN men spoke of comfort originally they meant distinctly that which enabled them to be strong together, as when a garrison sorely forfought receives aid and strengthening, not only because of actual reserves, but because of the heartening such fresh helpers bring. It is in this light that we understand that phrase describing treason as giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy. But the word has been weakened in use, as when men who live after the flesh speak of creature comforts, and think only of the very transient ministry from food and warmth, or of the satisfying of perverted appetites. When we think of that which comes from Principle we are not considering anything illusive or transient, for we are brought out of dreams into reality, out of the temporal into the enduring. The comfort of Principle, then, is the strengthening, heartening, genial assurance of good; it is the gentleness and kindness of eternal Love.
There be those who speak of Principle as cold and ungenial, professing to think of its Rightness as being uninteresting, like logarithms in mathematics, and of the sincerity and integrity of Mind as being only severe. So perhaps many a lamb has thought of the fold as tame and of the required nightly return to it as oppressive, and has ventured out on the hillside, to become the victim of the wolves. So, too, have men thought of sin as interesting, and they have investigated its seductions while they railed against law and honor and right, only to find the truth of that uncryptic saying of Browning's,
It's wiser being good than bad;
It's safer being meek than fierce:
It's fitter being sane than mad.
